


Laces and Trips

by HappilyEverlarker (Graceyff)



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Tumblr: promptsinpanem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 03:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5031145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Graceyff/pseuds/HappilyEverlarker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little fall brings a memory back to Peeta that had been forgotten a long time ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laces and Trips

Coming home in the middle of the afternoon, just before Katniss returns with Willow and Deen from school is one of my favourite times of the day. It means I can prepare the kitchen table for the kids to work on their homework and once that's done they can use the pencils and crayons to draw and colour in. I can also make a start on dinner.

Setting down the bag which I brought home from the bakery, I take out the cheese buns, which are still slightly warm from having just finished baking them before I left Delly and her daughter Julie to finish the closing shift. They will go well with the dinner tonight, especially when I see what Katniss has left from her excursion to the woods this morning. 

Just as I have finished preparing the squirrel meat and set the oven to cook, the front door opens and in runs my little man. Deen is the spitting image of me when I was little, but his eyes are as silver as Katniss' and he has such a happy smile. He squeals as he leaps towards me trusting me to catch him. Lifting him up I ask him how his day at play school went. He has only just started a few weeks and it is really only like a day care centre for the younger children, but can also give them a taste of what real school will be like and his homework is usually to bring in a drawing or something he has found around the district related to a subject that the teacher is talking about. 

He begins to tell me all about his day and his friends, when Katniss comes in with one hand on Willow's shoulder as she guides our daughter to a chair at the kitchen table. As I set Deen into his own chair at the other side of the table I look up to see that my daughter has tear tracks down her face. I walk over as Katniss goes to the cupboard and reaches up for the first aid kit, then coming back to tend to a nasty graze on Willow's knee.

"What happened sweetie?" I ask as I kneel in front of her. She reminds me so much of her mother, with the dark hair and olive skin, but her eyes she got from me and I bet she made it until the gates of Victor's Village before the tears were too much for her to stop.

She doesn't look up from the intent stare she has on a spot on the floor and it's Katniss that answers me.

"She was coming over to me in the school yard at home time and she tripped. It looks like it must have been her shoelaces that were untied."

It's this remark that has me running for my studio and locking the door.

A memory that I have forgotten for so long comes to me as if it was just yesterday. It was one of the worse beatings I have taken from my mother and it was because I had tripped and dropped a cake in the middle of the busiest period of the bakery and in front of everybody in the shop. I was so embarrassed and I knew what was coming. That must have made my mother even more mad because she had to act like it was alright that I dropped and ruined a cake, especially as she was in one of her moods.

That evening when everything was cleaned away and the last of the customers had long been gone, she stayed down in the kitchen and asked Rye to send me down once I had finished any homework that had to be handed in the next day. Rye didn't want to tell me, but he knew it would make it even worse for me if I didn't go, as she would just assume that he had told me and I just didn't go down.

She made sure that there were no bruises anywhere on my face or hands that time, but my ribs had been bruised for weeks after and a lot of the time to and from school I was bent slightly over with the pain, but it eventually left and I was back to normal. My mother seemed to take that beating as a let out of sorts for her mood and for a good while after that she didn't hit me, but I knew it wouldn't last. 

A few weeks after, I was closing up the bakery with my father when he asked me to come and sit with him for a moment. He told me he was going to teach me a trick that would help me keep a little bit safer around work. Then he began to show me how to tie an extra knot in my shoelaces so that they wouldn't come apart and ever since then I double knotted my shoelaces every morning until it became a habit and second nature.

I come to, standing in front of a canvas with a sketch of my father sitting beside me in the bakery and I am glad that I will be able to make it a painting of a happy moment for once rather than anything from my nightmares.

As I make my way down the stairs I can hear Katniss and the children in the kitchen and dinner must be about ready by now. Rounding the corner I stop in the door to watch as Willow sets the plates on the table and Deen still sitting in his chair finishing his drawing for tomorrow. Katniss turns and goes to the oven to take out the squirrel and brings it to set in the middle of the table. She looks up noticing me standing in the door way and comes over. 

Placing her arms around my neck and leaning against me, I put my arms around her waist and press my cheek against her hair.

"I was a little worried, but I think Willow was a little more upset at you leaving so quickly." She whispers. "I tried to explain that you get memories sometimes and that they're aren't good and you need a little time to yourself, but she doesn't quite understand yet." She explains.

I nod to Katniss. I know that I have to make it up to Willow and so I go to her and take her into my arms to give her the biggest hug I can. I sit at my seat and she turns to look up to me and then comes to sit on my lap.

"Sweetie I love you so much and I know what's it's like to trip in front of a lot of people. I'll maybe tell you about it sometime, but after dinner I'm going to teach you a little trick that my father taught me, okay?" I ask.

She looks up then and gives me a hug.

"I love you too Daddy, thank you." She then gives me a quick peck on my cheek and goes to sit in her own chair so she can eat.

Katniss gives me a smile as she passes the salad bowl for me to take some.

After we eat I take the cinnamon rolls that I had also brought home earlier and set them on separate plates with a scoop of ice cream each and then I bring them to the coffee table in the living room. When I see Willow coming in to get her dessert I pat the couch beside me and she comes to sit. Showing her how to double knot her laces I look around at my family and feel my heart steel with the knowledge that out of the ashes of war I finally have what I had always wanted from the very first day I saw Katniss in her red plaid dress.

**Author's Note:**

> I thought about posting for Prompts in Panem so I decided to do it this year and when I found out this was the farewell tour I knew I definitely had to submit a piece.
> 
> I often wondered what exactly made Peeta always have to tie his shoes with double knotted laces so this is what came to me. Hope you liked it.
> 
> Also I'm not sure if anyone else has done this but I thought that Deen would be a fitting name for their son, and spelt like this it also helps to pay homage to Katniss' maiden name and previous family ties.


End file.
